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Warming Up

Welcome home stove!!

I am still warming up to it ( ). It’s quite a contrast in our white kitchen and I’ve already noticed how the black shows smudges very easily, but I do like it, and this photo makes me like it more. Hopefully someday we can get a stainless microwave and fridge to match. What a whirlwind of an adventure getting it from store to our kitchen. It came just in time for dinner tonight!! Let me back track to put things in context….

The husband and I set out for the gym on bike around 10:30. There I did 24 minutes on the Stepmill followed by a round of weight lifting. I often do my lifting on an aerobics step to keep my heart pumping (lift bicep and weight with each step up; do 10 steps per leg to get 20 arm reps). It was a nice, yet quick, workout. And the bike ride was COLD (but worth it!)

For lunch I made a turkey sandwich on Flax Oat bread – so delicious! We nuked the turkey to sizzling to kill any leftover microbes lurking about. I topped my toasted bread with a thin layer of olive oil mayo, spicy brown mustard, a pickle, and spinach.

On the side I had a Stonyfield yogurt (plain, fat-free) with pom and almond and a drizzle of agave that the husband brought home the other day to try (complimentary leftovers) –

Plus 2 bites of the husband’s beef and barley stew.

And pumpkin bark (still working on my Chicago gift!) for dessert –

After our quick lunch, we headed uptown for the Christmas Magic Show!

We got there a little early and the husband and I shared a decaf coffee –

The show was fantastic!! Symphony, choir, percussion ensemble, jazz quartet. I was so happy in the moment listening to Sleigh Ride played live by the symphony.

I got a call on my phone (on silent!) during the show from Sears. When I checked the message, it said they’d be there around 4:50 – just 20 minutes after the show was supposed to be over and we still had to un-park our car, go by the car place to pick up my Honda and make it home! Somehow (somehow!!) we did all of the above by 5:05. I had tried to call the delivery guys back to tell them I’d be 15 minutes late (I was planning to say 5 minutes…) but their number wouldn’t go through. So I got home and saw no sign of them, and my phone hadn’t rang either. I was VERY nervous they’d come and gone, so I called the main delivery line (a 1-800) and she said they were still on their way! Two minutes later, the truck came down the street. Yay!! When they arrived and unplugged our old fridge, the guy declared that we had the wrong cord. OH NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! The guy at the store had told me houses built in 1982 would have a 3 prong but apparently ours had been upgraded. But THANKFULLY he had a 4 prong in the truck. 10 minutes later they were gone!

Out with the old and in with the new –

We went in the garage for some kitchen ingredients and found our OLD STOVE STILL THERE!!! We thought they were going to take it but I guess the extra $10 (that I had waived anyway) was just for them to put it outside for you. Guess we’ll have to find a way to have the city recycle it. Anyone want any scrap metal??

On to Gran Bett’s dinner!

I put out some appetizers in these cute wooden bowls she gave me from the 70s that she bought in Hawaii – I had about 3 small handfuls of the roasted garbanzos (from OhNuts.com) and probably 10 Kashi crackers. This was my afternoon snack!

And made myself a mocktail. I didn’t plan on drinking tonight because I had 1 too many glasses of wine last night and woke up feeling gross last night and this morning. I knew I didn’t want to wake up like that tomorrow. In my grandmother’s antique cocktail glass 🙂

The big menu tonight was Peppercorn Crusted Steak au Poivre made with an all-natural beef tenderloin Karen got for the occasion. Yes, this is real heavy cream sauce, and yes, I just had a small amount of both beef and sauce. It was the perfect portion for me to get all the taste and flavor without feeling heavy (so I could save room for dessert!!)

On the side we did our Tri-Root Mash from Thanksgiving – sweet potato, russet, and parsnip, roasted until tender and then mashed with a bit of butter, S+P.

She said she’d share therecipe with me next week. It was basically a homemade shortbread crust cooked then layered with cream cheese, pineapple juice and sugar mix “icing” and then mixed fruit (more pineapple) and then a glaze.

My slice –

This dessert totally felt natural. And it’s pretty healthy with all the fruit (just along with a lot of sugar and some cream cheese on a shortbread crust).

I had 2 pieces like this for seconds and thirds – so yummy we were all picking at it!

I’m pretty full, but very glad I didn’t drink alcohol tonight. I am full of pretty wholesome things, so it’s a good kind of full. I’ve been promising myself all day long that I’d take a bath and read in bed tonight. I am reading The Book of Eleanor by Pamela Kaufman. It’s kind of hard to follow with all the foreign names, but the plot seems to be thickening.

My mom makes a fruit dessert like that, but we call it fruit pizza! It’s sort of like her signature dessert at gatherings. Not sure if the crust is exactly the same…hers seems like a sugar cookie. And she uses strawberry cream cheese! Soooo good. Now my mouth is watering…I want some fruit pizza!

Glad you got the stove…finally! And, hurray for you not having alcohol…maybe you can make that your new habit! Sounds like a busy Sunday..do you all attend church near your house??? Have never seen you post anything about going so just wondering. Happy oatmeal in the morning 🙂

Hey Kath!
I know this might be totally invasive and inappropriate BUT we learned in my nutritional class that lunch meat needs only to be heated if pregnant women are consuming it. Is there another reason why you chose to heat the lunchmeat? Should we be concerned about eating lunchmeat thats not thouroughly heated?

i love how you managed to be ‘happy in the moment’ at the performance despite so much other stuff going on! for me, that often takes a conscious decision NOT to continue worrying about everything and it can be HARD but is so worth it.

We do not attend a church. We’re not religious, only slightly spiritual. I do love my parents’ Presbyterian church that I grew up in and go there when I am home (where we were married also.)

seattlelove ,
Lol – someone actually emailed me that same question! No, I am not pregnant (I DID have a few glasses of wine on Friday night!!) My reasoning for heating the turkey was because it was the very last of our Thanksgiving turkey which was 9 days old and probably shouldn’t have been eaten. But we wanted it so we heated it to kill (hopefully) the bacteria that could have been lurking. I think it worked since we’re not sick (knock on wood).

Justy2003 – we call it fruit pizza where I’m from too! When I played tennis in high school one player’s mom would always bring it to Saturday tournaments… oh man was hard to not eat more than a piece or two in between matches! 🙂

we have some stainless appliances. they are pretty, but somewhat impractical. i think it’s okay as long as you don’t have kids. then you’ll either be constantly polishing, or you’ll have to just let it go and not worry about lots of smudges!

If you’ve already addressed this in another comment thread, please ignore; but I must say, I’m a little surprised you and the husband didn’t spring for a gas stove. Your culinary abilities certainly warrant it.

1) We had a gas stove already (at our apartment) and I HATED having to clean the grates every night. I didn’t think the gas cooked food any better than electric, so to me it was just a pain. If we ever have a fancy chef’s kitchen, maybe we’ll go back to gas, but I didn’t see it as much of an upgrade.

2) Not sure where our gas line is, but didn’t want to think about adding another expense to have it hooked up – the new stove itself (coupled with double car repairs this month) has left us thin on $$.

Hey Kath I have been reading your blog for a few weeks now and I LOVE it!!! Anyway…I am going to school to be a dietitian too. I love your banana oatmeal and now I can’t even eat it without the banana. Anyway…I was wondering…where did you get your awesome green shoes!!! That is my favorite color and I have been looking for shoes like those. They are adorable!